Brushless DC motors are different to 'normal' motors found in cheap toys and stores in that they require a three-phase DC square-wave to operate. However these sorts of motors can be scavenged from old media drives and other forms of dead technology. Not surprisingly an Arduino board can be the foundation of a brushless motor controller by generating the required signals and switching it through a bank of transistors to deal with the higher current requirement. The people at Filear have done just that and documented the process over two parts. Here's an example from part one:

For more information, code and schematics visit the tutorial parts one and two. And we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

As you can see from the motor tutorials, some external circuitry was required and this can be housed nicely on our Freetronics Terminal Shield for Arduino. The Terminal Shield breaks out all the Arduino headers to handy screw terminals, making it really easy to connect external wires to your motors without using a soldering iron. Ideal for quick experiments or for robust connections!